Week 4 Guidelines

Part 2:

Interview Questions and Transcript

Assignment Topic:

Develop a set of questions (open-ended) to interview the person from another culture you identified in Week 2 and provide a transcript (written responses) from this interview.

Note: The transcript of the interview will also enable completion of Course Project – Part 3 that is due in Week 7.

Directions:

Interview Question Selection:

• Develop a written set of interview questions that you plan to use in your interview.
• Review the section below containing Sample Questions: Questions to Ask a Person from Another Culture.
• Select 10-12 of these questions (more if you want, but choose at least 10), plus add any other questions that you would like to ask.
• You do not need to ask all these questions or ask them in the order you have them listed, as you will find that if you use open-ended questions they naturally lead to other questions based on the person’s responses.

Conduct the Interview:

Interview the person identified earlier using the questions you have prepared and drawing on your background knowledge from your research in Week 2.

Although it is very useful to take notes in the interview and/or tape record the interview, you need to be sensitive to how the person may react if you do this as well as to how it will influence you if you are taking notes as you do the interview.

If appropriate and with permission, you may take photos of the person and where they live, pictures of the person’s home/workplace/environment/artifacts from the person’s story; you may scan in pictures the person has shared with you, or you may draw your own pictures to illustrate points in your story. For this purpose, kindly get Informed Consent. See Sample under Section on Informed Consent.

If the person you conduct the interview with does not want to answer a question, you cannot make them do so.

Keep in mind the code of ethics employed by sociologists. The three main ethical principles that must guide fieldwork are:

• acquiring informed consent,
• respecting one’s informant’s privacy and dignity, and
• doing no harm (protecting them from risk).

Capturing the Interview Information:

After the interview, it will be helpful preparation for Week 7’s Part 3 of the Course Project if you take a moment now to note specific sociological concepts being learned in this class that may be related to responses received from your interviewee – especially while the interview is still fresh in your mind!

How to cite an interview:

As a personal interview is not published or “findable,” it should not be included in an APA reference list. Instead, a personal interview should be referenced as a parenthetical citation. For example: (First Name Initial, Last Name, personal communication, Date of Interview).

Deliverables (what to submit at the end of Week 4):

Written assignment which includes:

• Cover Page in APA style
• Provide a copy of questions with transcript (answers).
• It should be typed, double-spaced, size 12 font: Times New Roman or Arial font
• Length of paper (excluding cover and reference page): 2-3 pages
• Reference Page: As a personal interview is not published or “findable,” it should not be included in an APA reference list.